phalanx

[abou]

well that's your opinion. and mine is that it did portray how phalanxes can easily be damaged by misslie fire. of course many of you are going to agree with Mr. abou here because you don't like the movie, thus you will do everything to make it appear 100% wrong.

Fine. What do I know anyway?

[Cullhwch]

Why don't you just reduce the shield stats of phalanx units and compensate them with extra defensive skill? It's not a very difficult solution.

[gamegeek2]

An arrow falling from a volley does not have nearly as much impact as straight shots do, and one glance off of anything makes it lose most of its effectiveness, as Aemilius says. Also, think of the helmets. An arrow falling gets blocked by a helmet much of the time, and the shoulder pads are reinforced. The most likely chance is to fall at about a 45 degree angle and hope that it can penetrate the linothorax. Also, the Persian bows were made of cheap, lower quality wood that was readily available to the massive peasantry of the Empire, and this reduced the firing power of the bow, which allowed Greek troops to time and time again ward off Persian arrows with superior armour.

Also I'd like to point out that, in movies, armour almost has no effect whatsoever, and a peasant with a crude weapon is often easily able to kill a prepared man in armour. This is easily explainable with an axe or similar weapon, but not with a crudely fashioned spear.

Compensating with defense skill sound like a good solution, but (WARNING!) it is kind of ahistorical; phalanxes didn't rely on defensive skill as much as the support of your comrades; training for individual combat was probably minimized in favour of discipline and practice in quickly forming ranks or the formation itself.

[Pontius Pilate]

Fine. What do I know anyway?

really?? this is your response? well um, okay.


EDIT: ohh, I get it now, sarcasm.

[anangryelitist]

well if you do the maths say 200 arrows are fired at 200 pikemen and say that 50% of them glance off the spears 10% gets blocked by shields (im under the impression that they dont actively try to block arrows with their shields) and 35% doesn't pierce the armour. Thats still about 10 casualties a volley. That being said discovering that this is all because of the shield bonus what i just said is kinda useless :D

[Foot]

How is that a useful post? Where did you get thos numbers from? Those numbers could be replaced with almost any others and we would all be none the wiser.

F0ot

[SwissBarbar]

maybe you should just sacrifice some friends who from a phalanx with 6-meter broomsticks and cardboard-shields and helmets and then shoot at them with bows and arrows

[gamerdude873]

Good idea Swiss. Any takers? Remember, its in the name of historical accuracy!

[a completely inoffensive name]

I have to agree with Foot (for once) on this, why is everyone throwing random numbers and "facts" (i.e. their own opinion) and then disagree with EB team members, who might just know a bit more then any of us...